Love and Science
Does love in romantic sense exist? Or is it just the word our society has put it in Webster’s Dictionary when we feel we are strongly attracted or when we have this unexplainable feeling towards someone? Is love merely a result of a chemical imbalance or physiological unevenness in the brain, or is it a result indeed of Cupid’s intervention which requires no reason at all? For some philosophers, the question “what is love?” generates a host of issues: love would mean simply an abstract noun; for others, it is a means by which our beings are irrevocably affected once we are ‘touched by love’; some conducted experiments and analyzed it while others have decided to leave it in the realm of the ineffable.
I am definitely back into writing and the great way to start this rebirth of passion is writing about love because it is everything. I’m a bit drunk while writing this article honestly. Now allow me to give to you a quick rant about this real thing called LOVE. Haha!
Most people say that when you’re in love, you would not even realize how and why you fell in love in the first place. It is MAGIC!! It just happens to you. You would never even realize how you developed such feelings but you would have a strong inclination towards the person you love and such feelings would be heart-felt. It was the French Enlightenment philosopher Blaine Pascal who said, “Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point,” which translates to, “The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.”
According to some of my readings, “the majority of the whole population of the world believes itself to be in love at any one time.” By such statement, we can clearly say that love exists in the world. When does it exist? Love actually exists when you are willing to sacrifice for your beloved. It’s when you are too busy yet you find time with your beloved. It’s when you learn to forgive and forget. It’s when you share yourself. It’s when you make others feel that they are special. It is when you learn to let go just to make the other person happy etc. (end of thinking capacity, haha!)
But tell me, can we prove that there is indeed love when science has a concrete explanation of what is chemically happening in the human body? In a 1999 study published by Psychological Medicine, Dr. Donatella Marazziti, it revealed to prove that love was more the cause of a chemical imbalance. Marazziti’s study suggested that serotonin, which was linked to neuroticism and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), could also play a part in sexual behavior. People with OCD become obsessed with minor tasks, so who’s to say normal people can’t become obsessed when it comes to love? The study involved 20 participants (17 women and three men around 24 years old) who were in love, along with 20 more participants who exhibited OCD, and finally another 20 participants who were neither obsessive-compulsive nor in love. Marazziti took blood samples from every participant to calculate the amount of serotonin in their platelets. While the average participants had a normal amount of serotonin, the participants with OCD as well as those in love had about 40 percent less serotonin. To prove that it was not coincidence, the researchers retested six of the in-love students one year later. As the researchers predicted, the in-love students’ serotonin had gone back to normal levels, and their infatuations for their significant other had declined to a less crazed status. THE FACT IS THAT LOVE ISN’T GENUINE as the experiment went on. Thus, if someone says that “I miss you my love”, he is not really lovesick. He is just missing that special level of serotonin which makes him think that he misses you.
Most people say that when you’re in love, you would not even realize how and why you fell in love in the first place. It is MAGIC!! It just happens to you. You would never even realize how you developed such feelings but you would have a strong inclination towards the person you love and such feelings would be heart-felt. It was the French Enlightenment philosopher Blaine Pascal who said, “Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point,” which translates to, “The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.”
According to some of my readings, “the majority of the whole population of the world believes itself to be in love at any one time.” By such statement, we can clearly say that love exists in the world. When does it exist? Love actually exists when you are willing to sacrifice for your beloved. It’s when you are too busy yet you find time with your beloved. It’s when you learn to forgive and forget. It’s when you share yourself. It’s when you make others feel that they are special. It is when you learn to let go just to make the other person happy etc. (end of thinking capacity, haha!)
But tell me, can we prove that there is indeed love when science has a concrete explanation of what is chemically happening in the human body? In a 1999 study published by Psychological Medicine, Dr. Donatella Marazziti, it revealed to prove that love was more the cause of a chemical imbalance. Marazziti’s study suggested that serotonin, which was linked to neuroticism and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), could also play a part in sexual behavior. People with OCD become obsessed with minor tasks, so who’s to say normal people can’t become obsessed when it comes to love? The study involved 20 participants (17 women and three men around 24 years old) who were in love, along with 20 more participants who exhibited OCD, and finally another 20 participants who were neither obsessive-compulsive nor in love. Marazziti took blood samples from every participant to calculate the amount of serotonin in their platelets. While the average participants had a normal amount of serotonin, the participants with OCD as well as those in love had about 40 percent less serotonin. To prove that it was not coincidence, the researchers retested six of the in-love students one year later. As the researchers predicted, the in-love students’ serotonin had gone back to normal levels, and their infatuations for their significant other had declined to a less crazed status. THE FACT IS THAT LOVE ISN’T GENUINE as the experiment went on. Thus, if someone says that “I miss you my love”, he is not really lovesick. He is just missing that special level of serotonin which makes him think that he misses you.
Some people say love isn’t all you need. It doesn’t lift us up where we belong. If anything it holds us back. Why obsessed about love when there’s so much else going on in the world, anyways? “Love can’t exist, it is merely humanity’s evolutionary instinct to procreate hidden underneath Hollywood’s overzealous use of romance”, a writer once said. Is it indeed a figment of imagination, a ruse that only lasts in movies? I don’t think so.
Try to think of these? Does revenge exist? Jealousy? Selfishness? Pain? Does hate exist? YES! If these do exist, THEN WHY NOT LOVE? Indeed, matters of the heart are not easily explained because it is not logic that dictates its whereabouts. The heart has a mind of its own which constantly remains part of the mystery of human existence. I believe that love exists. WHY does it exist? Because WE do. It is part of our evolution and composition – to love and be loved in return. Gilbert Ryle once said, love is felt. It is NOT the feeling. Like an ulcer is felt, but an ulcer is not the feeling. So the idea is simple then: if you have love, you KNOW that it exists. If you don’t have it, you don’t. So why not take a chance?
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